The exploration and production of hydrocarbons require the use of numerous types of tubulars also referred to as pipe. Tubulars include, but are not limited to, drill pipes, casings, tubing, Riser and other threadably connectable elements used in well structures. The connection of “strings” of joined tubulars or drill strings is often used to drill a wellbore and, with regards to casing, prevent collapse of the wellbore after drilling. These tubulars are normally assembled in groups of two or more commonly known as “stands” to be vertically stored in the derrick or mast. The derrick or mast may include a storing structure commonly referred to as a fingerboard. Fingerboards typically include a plurality of horizontally elongated support structures or “fingers” each capable of receiving a plurality of stands.
Rotary drilling and top drive drilling systems often use these stands, instead of single tubulars, to increase efficiency of drilling operations by reducing the amount of connections required to build the drill string in or directly over the wellbore. In order to assemble these tubulars into stands, individual tubulars may be joined using an offline “mousehole” in the rig floor. Typically, slips designed for rotary tables are used at the mousehole to grasp and hold individual tubulars as they are threaded together to make a stand. These slips require rig personnel (sometimes two to three) to manually pick up and place them in the mousehole around the drill pipe to facilitate the make-up of the stands. These slips are bulky and must be top-mounted.
Other slips have been used as dedicated mousehole slips, thereby removing the need to manually pick up and move them between the mousehole and well center. However, these dedicated mousehole slips incorporate standard slips that are designed to hold hundreds of tons, although any slip at the mousehole would likely need to support no more than 10 tons. Further, many slips still require removal and insertion of different wedges in the bowl of the slip to deal with tubulars of different diameters, which takes additional time and energy.
The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods that overcome one or more of the shortcomings of the prior art.